Dr. Bharat Desai's Blog

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When a new doctor is learning for the first time or when a senior doctor is learning or not learning a new technique, who suffers? Naturally, a patient. When we visit a doctor with physical problem as a patient, we expect perfection. But it is not easy to get. So, we have to understand how the doctors do mistake.

We look for medicine to be an orderly field of knowledge and procedure. But it is not. It is an imperfect science, all enterprise of constantly changing knowledge, uncertain information and fallible individuals. It is not only science, but also habit, intuition and plain guessing. This article is about dealing with mistakes made by doctors and their remedy.

India-Pakistan relation’s issue is a very complex subject and to summarise it in a 180 page book needs great skill. This interesting book ‘India Vs Pakistan: Why Can’t We Just Be Friends?’ written by Husain Haqqani caught all my attention. I also got an opportunity to present its review to my fellow members of the Senior Citizenship Club. Following their enthusiastic response to my talk, I now have this great urge to share the review with my blog readers as well.

I shall try by introducing the author, telling about different wars, what leaders of India, Pakistan and other nations tell and finally the conclusion.

The Author: Hussain Haqqani

Hussain Haqqani is a Pakistani, who is a former Pakistani Ambassador to the US. Not only that, he was also an advisor to four Pakistani Prime Ministers including Late Benazir Bhutto. Author is currently the Director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC. The authenticity of his writing increases because he is an academi…

One of the recent off-bit topics I’ve read, this one book around ‘Mumbai Mafia’ has been the most interesting, well-researched and well-written. Here is an excerpt of Dawood Imrahim’s journey from “Dongri to Dubai”, and the six decades of Mumbai mafia.

The Book

The author collected information from the book “the gangsters in the city” written by Mumbai police commissioner Mahesh Narain Singh and “Underworld king Dawood Ibrahim” and Gang War written by Sharafat Khan in Urdu, Mumbai. Police dossiers gave much knowledge the book “Mumbai Police” by Deepak Rao gave many valuable information. The articles in Tabloid current and the Illustrated weekly of India helped him a lot. The most important of all was meetings with police, Arun Gawli, Chhota Rajan, Abu Salem, Ashwin Naik, Chhota Shakeel and not to forget at all, his telephonic interview by Dawood Ibrahim on Sep.1997.

Many of us pass years before final decision to visit this nature's feast adored by human ( 2400 years ago) Kanheri Caves just near Borivali, Mumbai. It took me 50 years to reach this point, since my first visit to this city in 1965.Mumbai and caves!

Mumbai was built on seven islands. As old sediments around coastal areas of Kandivali shows us, Mumbai was inhabitable since the stone age. It was mainly occupied by Koli fishing community.

I recently conducted a social study of the status and condition of old-aged people and the old-age homes in Gujarat. This is a combination of the outcome of the study and the book review of a Gujarati book “Vrudhdhata Ni Samasya” by Dr. Hiteshkumar N. Patel.

Our mind is nothing but a flow of thoughts, just like a river with flowing water. One’s personality is shaped by one’s thoughts. If our thoughts are good, we feel happy and radiate confidence and charm around us. Paying attention to managing one’s thoughts is a must. But, how to do that?

“Anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die” – Gautama Buddha

We all know ‘Anger’ does not do any good to anybody. Almost all of us have dealt with it very closely, either as the recipient, the 'perpetrator' or often both. Then why do we fail staying away from getting angry every off and on? Let’s take a deep dive into what anger is all about and if there is anything we can do to stay away from getting angry at all.

Anger is an emotional reaction and expression to immediately stop the threatening behaviour or another outside force. It is inherent, inborn, habitual and integral part of psyche and personality.

Anger has functional value for survival. Extreme and environmental factors causing anger at home and office / work place are difficult to change. Males have hormone testosterone leading to aggressiveness, possessiveness, sense of ownership, autocracy and dominance. Females have hormone oestrogen giving temperament of tolerance, let-go attitude, fo…

When you are young and earning reasonably more, spending becomes an inescapable habit. There is no brake that can stop your consumerism from growing bigger when you have a credit card! Well, ‘financial discipline’ is the first condition for happy living and enjoying a tension-free, stress-free life. I thought, I must show the ideal way with a few handy tips.

Salary Split: Prepare a list of fixed monthly income and expenses. Keep that amount aside – reserved. On getting salary, one must spare money for the compulsory installments cycles like SIP (Systemic Investment Plan), PPF, etc. and also for the other recurring expenses like utility bill payments, domestic help salary, etc. Most importantly, put aside certain percentage of your salary for the ‘unplanned’ expenses.

I know the title create some ambiguity around its meaning. Here’s the story: the author was a medical student studying at Surat during 1969-1974. Being an offspring of a middle class family, all his parents could send him every month was Rs. 100 (One hundred). No doubt, this was more than 25% of his father’s salary and the rest 75% was to be spent by remaining nine members of the family. So, I used to receive Rs. 100 by MT (money transfer) at Bank of Baroda, Vanita Vishram (Surat) branch. Now this amount was exhausted in total on day one itself – so the remaining 29 days of the month had to be spent without any money – ‘zero balance’ stage, for all five years of the under graduation. This makes the story title "Life without money - 24 hours x 29 days x 60 months"!

An Aadivasi girl Sangita at Naahari Hotel, Pangarbari (near Wilson Hills, Gujarat) teaches us the Indian culture and way of welcoming guests!

On 15-Jun-2016, my friend Sanjay Mahant and I visited a scenic hill-station in South Gujarat – Wilson Hills (near Dharampur). We wandered during the noon enjoying the view of the hill-station and chitchatting. We just did not think of the time while experiencing the pleasing wind and the nature.

This is a rare story of how a person from Valsad (Gujarat) turned into someone serving Aadivasi (tribal) girls far away from his home in the interiors of the Dharampur forests.

Naresh Ramanandi, my friend Sanjay Mahant’s brother-in-law, is a dedicated follower of Shri Rang Avadhoot Bapji of Nareshwar. Bapji once told, I shall take rebirth as an Aadivasi. So in search of Shri Avadhoot Bapji, Nareshji opted to reach this area and thought of some service activity.

It was a Thursday, otherwise a working day at my hospital, but I chose to declare it a holiday because my friend Sanjay Mahant and I asked each other to go for an event at Kanya Chhatralaya, Vagavad (near Dharampur, Gujarat). In turn, surprise visit to this hill-station materialised on 15-June-2016.
One of the less visited hill-stations and waiting to be developed for tourist needs, this is one of the best hilly places I have ever seen. If you want to share nature in a less crowded, say lonely place, Wilson Hills is for you. This 2500 feet high place is 25 km away from Dharampur and 130 km from Surat. We can easily reach here by very good roads in the scenic Western Ghats.

In Greece, there is a law about marriages. It forces you to give a detailed advertisement of marriage decision telling about both bride and groom.... one month in advance, in the newspaper.

I think this exercise gives you time to reconsider regarding prudence of your decision. You may analyse your said partner and think about compatibility. Then the chances of cancelling the decision are more.

Or readers of the news may warn you about the drawbacks of the said partner, leading to no marriage at the said place.

Or else, bacteria, insects and unwanted calories will be engulfed leading to diseases, obesity and other undesired troubles.The tongue behind will kill you if you inadvertently and imprudently overuse it.

See, the creator of human body ''God'' has kept nose and ears permanently open and eyes also open most of the time, except while sleeping. However, mouth has to be kept closed all the time except for speaking and eating.

Blog authors

When I started writing on my blog, I used to ask myself if I should write at all. If yes, why? I would like to share my views on this topic with you.

I write for myself.
This may sound egoistic, but it is self-explanatory as well. Because I
want freedom from my thought cycle, I get mental catharsis by just
writing out whatever it is. While having some serious events with
myself, say death of my mother first and then father, writing down makes record of my emotions at a given time which I’m never going to repeat.

I do write for my daughter Vaishali, son Rahul and their friends. I want to tell my experiences and let them know about me. I have done this in Life At 60 article series – it is my mini-autobiography, telling all about me. Article on Marriage, Parents in old-age homes, etc. are other such articles.

I
want to summarize what I have read. My bookreviews are one example. I
can re-read the book and memorize the same after reading my own
book-reviews.

I want to teach all major religions. It is a wide subject, but I want to write as briefly and as precisely as possible. I have done this in Jainism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. I will carry this on and on.

An
ultimate for all and so me, the life expectancy of an Indian is 65,
Gujarati is 70 and my caste – Anavil – is 75 years. I am 62 and so, I
have to start preparing for my zeroing, I – even from the highest level
of my physical, intellectual and financial gains – will be nowhere, just
a zero. My writing is keeping a record of all I want to say.

If
I conclude without this last point, I won’t be happy – I want to
exhibit my level of high intelligence and prove it to myself, if not to
others. The series of around hundred articles prove this for me and
makes me a showman of the types I want to be.